At the Table

 

Matthew 15:10-28

August 16, 2020

 

            A favorite movie of mine from the 1980’s was War Games starring a young Matthew Broderick. In the movie, Broderick played an underachieving high-school genius and computer geek hacker before any of us understood what a computer geek or a hacker was. We certainly had no idea how important and central computers and technology were going to be in our lives when that movie premiered.

            Broderick’s character, David Lightman, could barely be bothered to keep up with his actual studies, but he would spend hours in front of his computer. He was able to hack into the computers at school and change his grades. He was able to hack into an airline’s reservations hub and make reservations for a flight to Paris. And while searching for a way into a software company, and their new roster of games, David inadvertently connects with a military computer and engages its list of war games. With the advice of some other computer genius/geek/hackers, he figure out the backdoor password to the military’s computer and starts a war simulation gave. Without fully realizing just what he was doing, David almost causes an international incident between the United States and what most of us knew as the Soviet Union.

            While David and his girlfriend, Jennifer, thought they were just playing games, the computer, Joshua, thought that the attacks were actually being launched. To make a long story short, and without giving away too much of the ending, the computer – also known as Joshua – had to learn what the real outcome of nuclear would be before it started an actual nuclear war. Spoiler alert: Joshua the computer does indeed learn and stops the launch of a full-out nuclear wat at the last, most dramatic moment. The computer’s last words of the movie are:

 “A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?”

            The computer, Joshua, in this movie learned. It learned that any nuclear war scenario that was set before it would end in a draw. An undercurrent of the movie was if the computer could learn this, could the world superpowers learn it as well?

            This movie came out in the latter days of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. It spoke to the greatest fear of my childhood, and probably to the greatest fear of my older siblings’ generation as well: nuclear war. I didn’t have the hide-under your-desk-in-case-of-a-nuclear-attack drills that my older siblings had, but it was an omnipresent reality of my childhood. A few years ago, when tensions between North Korea and the U.S. were running high and seemingly escalating, I thought about War Games. I wondered if we had learned much from the long chill of the Cold War. Have we learned that the best result of any full-scale nuclear confrontation would be a draw? In the movie, the great risk was hoping that a computer, artificial intelligence, could learn. In true Hollywood fashion, Joshua did learn. And it seemed as though the humans around it did as well. Whether artificial intelligence has the capability to learn is one thing, but we know that humans can learn. My question today is, did Jesus learn?

            This is a hard question for many of us because it smacks up against our understanding of who Jesus was. But we claim in our confessions, in our theological understanding of Jesus’ nature that he was both fully human and fully divine. Well, if Jesus was fully human, does that mean that there were things he needed to learn?

            Our passage starts with an explanation from Jesus about what really defiles. All we hear are his words to the crowds, but they were spoken after a confrontation with some Pharisees and scribes. The religious folks were upset that Jesus’ disciples did not perform the ritual hand washing before they ate. We wash our hands before we eat for the sake of hygiene, and since the pandemic started, every 20 minutes or so just because. Observant Jews performed hand washing and other ritual cleansing for the sake of purity laws. To not perform the ritual handwashing was to be unclean; to be unclean or defiled was to be separated from God.

            Jesus turned this argument back on his detractors. He called them hypocrites. He lifted up words from the prophet Isaiah.

            “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.”

            Now we catch up to our passage. Calling the crowds around him, Jesus told them about what really defiles. It is not what goes into your mouth. It is what comes out of your mouth. Because what comes out of your mouth comes from what is in your heart. That is where you find defilement or cleanliness. Is your heart defiled? Is it unclean? Or is to close to God?

            All of this is great. I am cheering Jesus on with every word. But then he left that crowd and that place, and he and the disciples traveled to the district of Tyre and Sidon. This was a Gentile region. There a Canaanite woman, a Gentile, approached him, shouting at him.

            “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.”

            We expect people to come shouting after Jesus, calling after him, touching the hem of his robe. But we don’t expect what happened next – nothing. Nothing happened. Jesus ignored the woman. He said nothing to her, just continued on as though she had not spoken or approached him at all. But she would not be ignored. The disciples could not shut her out. They urged Jesus to send her away. She was a bothersome woman who kept shouting at them, and she was getting more annoying by the minute.

            Jesus spoke then, but his answer, although directed at the woman, was actually spoken to his disciples.

            “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

            But this Canaanite woman, this mother of a sick child, was undeterred. She knelt before Jesus, which in the Greek context would have been seen as an act of worship, and said,

            “Lord, help me.”

            The Jesus we think we know would have relented at that moment. He would have shown her the same compassion he showed the crowds. He addressed her at last, but what he said hurts to hear. Jesus told the woman,

            “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

            If he had said that to me, I would have crawled away, utterly defeated. But this woman, this Canaanite woman, this Gentile woman, this mother with a sick child was undeterred. She did not slink away, crushed and broken. If Jesus’ words hurt her, we do not glean that information from the text. What she did next was powerful. She turned Jesus’ words back on him.

            “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”

            It would have been a bold statement for anyone to make, but it was especially bold for a Gentile woman to say this to a Jewish rabbi. But she was a mother with a sick child, and she would not be turned away. Jesus hear her. Not only did he hear her, he rewarded her persistence. Her faith, Jesus declared, was great! Her desire was granted. The woman’s daughter was healed instantly.

            Sure, it is a happy ending. The woman got what she wanted. But why did Jesus respond the way he did? It seems especially ironic after his teaching about a person’s heart and what really defiles. If what is in our heart defiles us than what was in Jesus’ heart? Did Jesus’ heart hold racism? Sexism? The woman had to convince Jesus to help her daughter. What was in Jesus’ heart?

            There are many theories as to what Jesus was trying to do with his response to this woman. One is that his words would not have sounded as harsh to the original hearers as they do to our modern ears. Perhaps the saying about the children and the dogs was from an ancient proverb. It would not have been offensive to the people living at that time. Maybe Jesus was the word for dog affectionately, as if he were addressing a puppy. The Greek word for dog used here does make the distinction between a household animal and the wild, stray dogs that roamed during that tie. The problem with this theory is that the Aramaic Jesus spoke did not contain this distinction.

            There is the possibility that this was Jesus’ way of testing the woman’s faith. If she passed the test, then her request would be granted. He tested. She passed. But when did Jesus test people before he healed them or their loved ones? I cannot think of another example. He did not make the crowds pass a test before he fed them. He might have turned on their heads the tests that the religious leaders used to try and trap him, but he did not test the people who came to him for help.

            Another possibility is that this story must be taken just as it is, harshness and all. Jesus was a Jewish man of his day. He lived in a particular context and that context included chauvinism toward women and outsiders, others. One commentator I read wrote,

            “His limited perspective is in part corrected by the clever retort of a desperately bold woman, who convinces him that Gentiles must also share in God’s bounty.”

            Does that mean that Jesus learned? Does that mean that this woman pushed him to see with a new perspective? Does that mean that her persistence, her undeterred pleading with Jesus to allow her even a small presence at the table, changed his mind, opened his mind, and taught him something?

            Yes, I know the idea, the possibility of Jesus needing to learn makes us uncomfortable. Yes, I realize this runs headlong into what we have been taught to believe and understand about Jesus. We equate him with perfection. But what does it mean to be perfect? And what does it mean that Jesus was fully human? As one commentator put it, Jesus endured all of the tests and trials that humans do, but he did not sin. Maybe not sinning does not mean that Jesus did not have something to learn. Maybe not sinning means that Jesus actually learned.

            When confronted, he did not fall back on excuses or defensiveness to justify his position. Maybe he learned from this Canaanite woman, this Gentile, this other. Maybe he saw through her eyes and realized that he was wrong and immediately corrected course. Maybe not sinning was that he learned, heard her, and changed direction. He was open to her pleas, to what he could learn from her, and to what God was speaking through her.

            Did Jesus learn? It seems to me that if he did, then that is our good news. Because it means that we still have much to learn. It means that not only is God still speaking but may be speaking to us through the most unlikely of people; people who are undeterred in making us listen and who are persistent in calling us to see. Jesus learned, and if Jesus learned, so can we. May we be like this woman in our faithfulness. May we be persistent in learning, even in the lesson is hard and painful. May we be undeterred in being willing to change and correct our course when God sends us a new lesson. May we be willing to hear another voice, a different voice, at the table. May we be ever more like Jesus and learn.

            Thanks be to God.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia!” Amen.

25 Years

 This is an excerpt from my weekly letter to my congregation. I share some of my thoughts about the anniversary I celebrate today -- the 25th anniversary of my ordination as a Minister of Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (USA). Hopefully, it conveys, even in a small way, what being a pastor for this many years has meant to me. 

As I write this, I am thinking about two things at the same time. The first is that tomorrow, August 20, marks the 25^th anniversary of my ordination to the Ministry of Word and Sacrament. The second is that I just had some dental work done, and the right side of my face is numb.

 I know these two thoughts seem to have nothing to do with each other. The first evokes memories of a day that was filled to the brim with emotion: I was excited, nervous, joyful, scared, overwhelmed, and earnest. I remember thinking that I could not believe I had made it to that day. What a wild ride from my first tentative thoughts about maybe, possibly being called by God to ministry to my gut punch response when I walked onto my seminary’s campus for the first time – applying for a job – and realizing I had to be in that place, to my classes, to making lifelong friends, to my ordination exams to my ordination. I stayed with my parents in their hotel room that night, and I could not sleep. I kept playing out the day in my mind. I was ordained. I was beginning a new life as God’s servant. I could hardly imagine or foresee where this journey would lead.

 But as for my dental work, I really just want to drink my coffee without fear of dribbling it down my face. I want to feel like my mouth is back to its normal size and shape. I hope that I’ll be able to try a little yogurt in a few minutes. Soft food sounds good right now.

 So what’s the connection between the two, you ask? The numbness I feel from the dental work is necessary. But after 25 years of serving churches, moving from one congregation to the next, hearing the hopes and fears of parishioners, it would be easy and tempting to numb my heart. Not because I am choosing to be callus, but because I have born witness to so much joy and so much pain, a little numbness might keep my heart and my mind from being overloaded.

 In 25 years of ministry, I have baptized babies who have cried and fussed and slept while I sprinkled water on their foreheads and welcomed them into the body of Christ. I have also baptized a baby who only lived for minutes, and I am still not sure if the water I used was from the bowl provided by the nurse or my tears. I have stood with couples as they began their lives together, and I have grieved with couples whose marriages were ending. I have welcomed new members with joy, and repeated ancient words of hope and promise as members were sent with love back to God’s arms. I have been privileged to celebrate with a sick parishioner who has been made well, and equally as privileged to be in the sacred space when a final breath was breathed. I have lost count of the session meetings and Bible studies and special programs. I have put on my old waitressing shoes and served at dinners and lunches. I have served in five different presbyteries, and double, maybe triple, that for committees. I have planted seeds with youth groups that I hope and pray took root. I have set down my own roots in places and with people; and I have dug up those same roots and moved on.

 In 25 years of ministry, I have prayed to God, rejoiced in God, and argued with God. There were many times I wanted nothing more than to walk away. Let someone else be the minister; I am working at Starbucks. But something, someone, always brought me back.

 You see, it would be easy to wish for numbness when it comes to ministry. One secret of being a pastor that you can only discover by living it is that it has the power to break your heart wide open – again and again. But that is also the beauty of ministry. It is the beauty of living. If we love, we also risk a broken heart. But life and ministry are nothing without love. So as eagerly as I await the numbness around my mouth to dissipate, I also push back at the numbness that would protect me in my call.

 I pray that you will push back against numbing yourselves as well. It is easy and understandable to wish for numbness because the world hurts. It hurts to see how divided we are, how broken we are, how we hurt one another. It would be easy to numb ourselves against all of that hurt. But when we talked about what the Church is in our visioning committee, some folks commented that for them Church is the place to feel safe, to recharge, to get a spiritual lift. I agree with all of that, but I want to add this. I believe Church and worship is also where we fight back against our desire to numb ourselves from the world’s pain. In worship our empathy, as well as our spirits, is renewed and restored.

Unexpected Transformation

Genesis 32:22-31

August 2, 2020

 

Does anyone remember the Pink Panther movies with Peter Sellers? I was just a kid when they hit the big screen, but I was aware of the character of the Pink Panther, because I watched the cartoon of the same name on Saturday mornings. Peter Sellers starred as Inspector Clouseau, who was a bumbling but very funny detective. While I was more attuned to the Pink Panther of Saturday mornings, and even though I have not seen one of the movies in years, I do remember one particular aspect about each film. Clouseau had a manservant named Cato. Cato was a master of martial arts, and it was his job to attack Clouseau at unexpected times. This was meant to keep the inspector vigilant and, on his toes, when dealing with criminals. Cato would ambush Clouseau anyplace, any time, even at home. But if the telephone rang or someone came to the door, he would immediately return to his role as the devoted valet. 

The Pink Panther movies were funny and silly. The relationship between Cato and Clouseau was meant as a comedic device. It was meant to make people laugh. But the story we have before us in Genesis is anything but funny. But the reason I start with a comedy movie is that the Cato’s unexpected ambushes on Clouseau make me think about the ambush that happens to Jacob. Maybe ambush is too strong of a word, but it does read like one. It feels like one.

Jacob, our trickster, our grasper, our scoundrel, has done well for himself. He met his match in his father-in-law, Laban, who tricked him into marrying first his oldest daughter, Leah, then the true desire of Jacob’s heart, Rachel. Jacob has had children with both women, and their maidservants. There are eleven offspring at this point. But Jacob has made the decision to leave his father-in-law’s home and try to make peace with his brother Esau. While this sounds as though Jacob has mellowed some, the old trickster still had some tricks up his sleeves.

When he and Laban agreed to part company, Laban told him he could take some of the livestock that bore certain physical traits. Jacob engaged in what might be understood as an example of the earliest genetic engineering and manipulated quite a few animals that would go with him. Rachel must have learned from her husband, because before they left her father, she stole some of her father’s household gods.

Laban, realizing they were gone, took after them. Jacob did not know any of this, so he encouraged Laban and his men to search the tents. But Rachel had hid them in such a clever and such a sneaky way, that she proved herself to be just as cunning as Jacob.

But now we come to our part in the story. Through messengers, Jacob has let Esau know that they were coming. The messengers have reported back that Esau is advancing toward them with 400 of his men. Jacob fears the worst, so he divides his group into two, and works out a plan to make Esau think that he is better equipped for a fight than he truly was. And now, he has sent his wives and his children across the Jabbok, and he is alone. Without any pause in the narrative, without any hesitation or explanation, a man begins to wrestle Jacob in the darkness.

Like the ambushes Cato used to wage on Clouseau, this seems to come from nowhere. But while Cato and Clouseau were silliness embodied, this is deadly serious. The unknown person and Jacob wrestle until daybreak. They seem to be an even match, because neither one can overcome the other. Finally, as the light of the new morning begins to creep out from its bedclothes, the man realized that he could not beat Jacob. So he strikes Jacob on his hip socket. Jacob’s hip is immediately dislocated, and I would suspect the pain would have been excruciating. But Jacob was not named for his grasping tendencies for nothing.

The man demands to be let go because the day is breaking. But Jacob won’t release him until he receives a blessing. The man asks Jacob his name.

The man asks Jacob his name.

This was not a moment of introduction. In the near Eastern culture, names were not just designations or identifications. To know someone’s name was to have a power over that person. It was as if knowing someone’s name was to hold that person’s soul, that person’s innermost being, in your grip. What is your name was not just a getting to know you kind of question. To know Jacob’s name was to make Jacob vulnerable. But Jacob responds. He tells this man, this man whom he has wrestled and struggled and grasped.

“Jacob.”

The man says,

“You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans and have prevailed.”

The man gave Jacob a new name but would not respond in kind when Jacob asked him what his name was. But the man blessed Jacob, and the wrestling match was over. Jacob did the same as when he had the dream of the angels and the ladder, he named the place where he stood. He named it Peniel, which in Hebrew translates to seeing God face to face but not losing his life in the process.

This is a great story. It captures your imagination. It captures mine anyway. I often like to think about biblical stories through the lens of a screenplay or a novel. If I were to write this story in my own words, what would I say? How would I frame it? How would I tell the story up to this point and where would I take it once this part of the story is complete? But beyond being a compelling narrative, what else? What does it mean for us today? What significance does it hold for our lives beyond this morning in worship?

I know that I cannot answer this question for all of us, I can only answer it for me. When I read this story of Jacob wrestling with this man, with God, through the dark night, I feel as though it is the story of my own faith, my own struggles with God. It embodies my own long dark nights of the soul, when I wrestled with God, when I wrestled with my faith, when I wrestled and strove against what I thought God wanted of me and what I wanted for myself.

I have a confession to make. I am so envious of the people who seem to live their faith as easily as they breathe. That has never been me. When I was a kid, I questioned what I was told to believe about God. As an adult I do the same. For four plus years I co-lead a Bible Study with another pastor, whom I am grateful to call friend. But he and the other folks in the group – also people I am grateful to call friends – just seemed to get it all so much easier than I do. What they read in the Bible they seemed to accept more gracefully and willingly that I do. It’s not that I don’t take scripture seriously. I do. But I wrestle with it. I question I push back. I argue. For me faith has been a struggle, a wrestling match with God.

Sometimes in those Bible studies, and in many other circumstances as well, I would sit and listen and think, “I wish I could approach this like you all do. I wish it came easier for me. I wish I could just accept and move on.”

But I can’t seem to do that, and I’ve come to believe that maybe I am not supposed to. Maybe this is just who I am, and God who knows me just as I am, calls me to be a disciple, to follow, to lead, to preach, to pray, to work to be faithful just as I am. Maybe that is why the old hymn of the same name touches a chord in my heart. Maybe this is why the story of Jacob both draws me in, frustrates me, and even angers me; because I know I am more like Jacob than I care to admit. His life with God was not an easy one. He struggled. He grasped. He wrestled. But he was blessed. He was unexpectedly transformed, not only through the changing of his name, but because he walked away from this wrestling match with a life-long limp.

We so often think of transformations as beautiful, don’t we?  When Jesus took some of the disciples to the top of the mountain, he was transfigured into glory. His face, his whole appearance, even his clothing, went from ordinary to magnificent. That’s how we want to see transformation as well. We are transformed from our ordinariness into something more wonderful, more beautiful. In truth, we want to believe that transformation changes us from ordinary, flawed, frail to perfection. But when it comes to faith, when it comes to discipleship, to following Jesus, to trusting God, to hoping in the Holy Spirit, transformation does not erase who we were. Transformation transforms who we are, and it might even leave us with a limp. Even in resurrection Jesus still bore the scars of the nails.

But what really matters is that its worth it. The wrestling, the struggling, the limping. It’s worth it. Because the unexpected transformation that comes from God is not about making us perfect, it is about making us more who God created and called/calls us to be. Our transformation may come in unexpected ways, but it is worth it. That is the good news of the gospel. It is worth it.

Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.” Amen.